


Scorched Earth

by colonel_bastard



Category: Barry (TV 2018)
Genre: Angry Sex, Begging, Betrayal, Blow Jobs, Cheating, Codependency, Deepthroating, Denial of Feelings, Drunkenness, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Manhandling, Manipulation, Masturbation, Neediness, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Overstimulation, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Rough Oral Sex, Self-Esteem Issues, Service Submission, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:15:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21623605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colonel_bastard/pseuds/colonel_bastard
Summary: “Hey, man, are you okay?”Fuches startles away from him with a sudden bark of laughter, jerking his arm out of Barry’s reach so he can press the heel of his hand to his forehead, his eyes closed like he’s steeling himself against a dizzy spell.“Jesus, Barry,” he grits out. “I thought you were asleep.”Pre-series. Fuches is careless. Barry responds in kind. Somehow they always manage to bring out the worst in each other.
Relationships: Barry Berkman/Monroe Fuches
Comments: 10
Kudos: 64





	Scorched Earth

**Author's Note:**

> this one goes along with [old habits die hard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982761) and [reach](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21021935), with direct references made to the events of the former
> 
> definitely want to encourage everyone to **read the tags** here — and i would like to especially mention that consent issues are a big factor in this one, so please be careful! 
> 
> with that being said [here is some music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7-n-D2HhA) to set the mood

-

-

-

Barry is deep in a dream about the desert when the phantom sky comes crashing down and he wakes with a gasp to the weight of someone sitting down hard on the bed beside him. He’s halfway awake and three-quarters to lunging up with his fists when he recognizes the intruder and sags back against the pillow in a groggy daze.

“Fuches?”

The smell of alcohol is so thick on the air that Barry can taste it. Fuches looks like he’s been drinking since drink was invented, his eyes bloodshot and his face ruddy from the effort, his shirt and jacket almost comically disheveled. One good look at him, even in the dark, and any vestiges of sleep evaporate like flash paper. Barry immediately goes tense with alarm, one hand fumbling up from under the covers to reach out.

“Hey, man, are you okay?”

Fuches startles away from him with a sudden bark of laughter, jerking his arm out of Barry’s reach so he can press the heel of his hand to his forehead, his eyes closed like he’s steeling himself against a dizzy spell.

“Jesus, Barry,” he grits out. “I thought you were asleep.” 

Barry’s hand hovers uncertainly for a moment before he retracts it, slow and cautious. Judging by the light around the window shades it must be the absolute dead of night, somewhere past midnight but not quite morning. Mom used to call it _the witching hour_. That sounds about right— five minutes ago Barry was There, and now he’s Here— he’s very, very Here, every inch of his body rigid with awareness, his skull ringing like a bell. 

“I’m awake,” he says. _Understatement of the century._

He usually sleeps on his side, which means that Fuches is currently pressed into the convex space between the concave curve of Barry’s body and the precipitous edge of the bed. When Barry looks down he sees barely an inch of clearance between his stomach and the small of Fuches’s back. It would probably be a good idea to make a tactical retreat, shift away just enough to create a safe distance between them— but tactics were never Barry’s strong suit. He holds his ground. 

“Fuches,” he tries again, low and tentative. “What’s going on, man?”

After a deep, steadying breath, Fuches finally takes his hand away from his face and turns to give Barry a wobbly smile. 

“Nothing, man, nothing. I was just— you know.” 

No, Barry doesn’t know. Barry doesn’t know _shit_ — not what Fuches is doing, not what Fuches wants— fuck, he doesn’t even know what time it is. He sucks in a breath when Fuches abruptly reaches towards him, his hand giving Barry’s hair a clumsy tousle before sliding down to the back of his neck and staying there, heavy and deliberate. Barry gives a huff of surprise, his head nuzzled instinctively into Fuches’s grip. 

Oh. Now he knows.

“Yeah,” he says, their eyes locked. “Okay.”

That look on Fuches’s face— what is it? Barry has spent a lifetime learning the language of that face, but although there are some notes of familiarity here, this expression as a whole simply refuses to translate. It’s either completely new or else so rare that Barry has forgotten what it means. _Sad? Is he sad?_ But there’s a sharper edge to it than that, something tense, brittle—

“Hey, Barry,” Fuches says, his voice slurred. “Hey, buddy.”

“Hey, Fuches,” Barry says, his own voice little more than a whisper. 

There’s a flicker in the hand on the back of Barry’s neck, as subtle as the first quick tug at the end of the fishing line, the delicate warning that something is on the verge of taking the hook. Barry swallows hard and braces himself for the strike. 

“Yeah,” he says again, this time with a nod. “It’s okay.” 

That _look_ on Fuches’s face— _Is he angry? No, he can’t be, there’s no heat behind it_ — without a word he tightens his grip and draws Barry inexorably towards him. It makes the entire curve of Barry’s body constrict in response, his legs pulled up under the comforter on one side while he scoots in to bury his face in Fuches’s lap on the other, his farther arm stretched across the span of Fuches’s thighs to anchor himself there. His other arm ends up looped around Fuches’s back with the rest of him, his belly curled snugly at the base of Fuches’s spine. He’s close enough now to smell the cigarette smoke under the alcohol. 

Fuches doesn’t smoke. 

“Shit,” Fuches rasps, his fist clenched in Barry’s hair, his other hand braced on the mattress. “Jesus, god.” 

Eyes squeezed shut, Barry nuzzles his face at the raised front of Fuches’s pants, his hips already rocking helplessly against him through the comforter. Of course Fuches was just at a bar— _they don’t allow smoking in bars_ — okay he was out on the patio where they do allow it— it doesn’t matter because Fuches is groaning and shifting his weight and saying “ _Barry_ ” so who cares where he was before he was Here anyway. Barry tightens his body around Fuches like a kid tightening his fist around a shiny new quarter, terrified of losing it, certain that if he did he would have no one but himself to blame.

“Ugh, fuck,” Fuches pants. “C’mon, get over here.”

He clutches at the nape of Barry’s neck, taking him by the scruff to haul him out from under the comforter until Barry stumbles down to his bare knees on the carpet. Without the covers he suddenly feels almost naked, wearing only a t-shirt and boxers while Fuches hasn’t even taken off his jacket yet. Barry’s first, absurd impulse is to apologize for his state of undress, but then he sees Fuches struggling with his belt buckle and that takes priority over anything else. 

Quick and practiced, Barry assumes his post between Fuches’s legs, his sober hands nudging aside the ineffective drunk fumbling to take over with skilled efficiency, making short work of buckle, button, and fly— except the fly is already open. Barry’s fingertips swipe right through the space where the zipper should be, giving him the same jolt as missing the last step on a long staircase. Brow furrowed, he stares at it with the vague sense of dread that he would feel if he came home and found his front door ajar. A faint smell of cigarette smoke clings to the edge of his awareness, a blur in the corner of his mind’s eye. 

It’s not that big of a deal. Fuches must have forgotten to zip up after his third or fourth inebriated piss of the night, that’s all. After all, he was almost certainly at a bar before he came over, a bar with a patio full of smokers, Fuches just hanging around out there because the corner bartender has a heavy pour— 

“C’mon, man,” Fuches says raggedly, yanking his attention back to the present. “Help me out, here.” 

“Okay,” Barry says, the perfect two-syllable substitute for _yes, sir_. “Okay, okay.” 

The mattress has enough give to it that it doesn’t take too much effort to get Fuches’s pants and underwear down to his thighs— _sometimes Barry thinks that it would all be a lot easier if they could just take them all the way off_ — before he has a chance to move in Fuches has already grabbed him, one rough hand fisted in Barry’s hair to yank him closer. Barry has to catch himself with both hands on Fuches’s thighs to prevent a collision. 

“Whoa, whoa,” he protests. “Take it easy.”

He shoots an annoyed glance upwards, fully expecting to see a cocky smirk, an unspoken _what are you gonna do about it?_ to let him know that Fuches is just messing around. Instead he sees that awful, unknowable look again— _it’s almost, but not quite, pain_ — Barry cowers before it, his eyes wide, his chest constricted with apprehension. 

“Hey,” he says, weak and anxious. “What’s wrong?”

“Jesus Christ,” Fuches grimaces and gives Barry’s hair another insistent tug. “Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?” 

Barry wishes he knew what to say. At least he knows what to do— on the third tug he lets Fuches pull him all the way down, his mouth open, willing, and filled to the brim in no time. He takes genuine comfort in Fuches’s subsequent bone-deep sigh of relief. Barry doesn’t need to know what’s wrong; all he needs to know is what he can do to make it better. He doesn’t resist as Fuches spurs him towards a double-time pace right out of the gate.

“God, _fuck_ ,” Fuches spits out, both hands clutched in Barry’s hair to drive him hard and fast. “There it is. Fuck. _Fuck_.”

Even at a double-time pace they don’t get very far. Barry has barely found his rhythm before he’s struck by the shockwave sense that something is _wrong_ — it processes, clarifies— something is _different_ — it’s the _taste_. In the next instant Barry recoils like he just found a shard of glass in his mouth, moving with such force that Fuches loses his grip on him, his hands falling back to catch his weight on the bed. Even in the dim lighting Barry can see now that Fuches has something on him— he swipes his wrist against his lips and it comes away with a dark smear— _Jesus, is it blood?_ But the taste is artificial, almost waxy—

_It’s lipstick._

“Oh, fuck,” Barry moans, his eyes squeezed shut just a second too late. 

_Behind the sizzling dark screen of his eyelids, he sees a loaded ashtray on Fuches’s bedside table, the filters all kissed with red._

Barry wrenches his eyes open again and stares up at Fuches in sickening silence, paralyzed with dismay. Fuches bristles with all the ferocity of a wounded animal backed into a corner. 

“Fuck you, Barry,” he hisses. “Don’t you fucking look at me like that.”

“Fuck you, man,” Barry’s voice is tight and strangled, at a total loss for any other words. 

“You little shit,” Fuches is so drunk that it takes an effort for him to stay centered upright, his body listing unsteadily from side to side. “That’s not— it’s none of your fucking business, all right? That’s something that’s— that has nothing to do with— _fuck_ —”

He leans over onto one planted arm so he can raise the other to press the heel of his hand against his forehead, reeling and dizzy. Barry can barely comprehend what he’s looking at on the back of his wrist. It just doesn’t make any sense. If Fuches already had his fix tonight, then he had no reason to come here— unless he wanted to make sure that Barry knew about it. And sure, Barry knew he could be a dick sometimes, but he never thought that Fuches could be this... cruel. He’s more shocked than hurt. Like most impact wounds, he knows it’s only a matter of time before the pain starts to register.

They can’t stay like this. Barry has to tell Fuches to get out. He’s struggling to find the willpower to speak, but as usual, Fuches beats him to the punch and starts talking first. 

“Goddamn it,” he mutters through clenched teeth. “I tried. I fucking tried. I thought I could just—” He pushes his hand back through his hair, his eyes blank and unfocused. “I don’t know. I don’t— it wasn’t— I _tried_ , goddamn it.” A sharp, bitter laugh rattles out of him. “God knows _she_ did. Tried her fucking best. It just wasn’t— she wasn’t—”

He sucks in a shaky breath and turns to meet Barry’s eyes and all at once in an ugly rush of clarity Barry finally recognizes the look on his face. 

_Fear._

_He’s afraid._

Fuches stares down at him, speechless, as if he’s only just now realizing that he said all of that out loud. Barry can’t remember the last time he saw him this drunk. He wonders if that came before, or after. 

“Fuches,” he says. 

“I gotta go,” Fuches mumbles. “I gotta— I gotta go.”

He makes a clumsy attempt to lurch to his feet, one hand already groping blindly to pull up his pants. It takes only a fraction of Barry’s considerable strength to catch him by the hips and push him right back down to the bed again. Fuches flashes him a flustered, startled look as he sits down hard, his hands automatically going to Barry’s wrists, his grip loose and uncertain. 

“Hey,” he says. “Watch it.” 

He tries again, and although his intoxicated level of effort remains the same, this time Barry puts a little more weight into his answer, shoving Fuches back onto his ass and pinning him there with ease, his hands locked on Fuches’s hips and his arms pressed over Fuches’s thighs like the lap bar on a roller coaster. When Fuches jerks on his wrists, he doesn’t move an inch. It has a noticeably sobering effect, Fuches’s gaze honing in on Barry’s like a rifle scope, his voice tense. 

“I said watch it, Barry. I mean it.” 

Barry glares back at him, unflinching. He makes sure to maintain eye contact as he leans slowly towards Fuches’s exposed cock, his mouth yawned open and his lips pulled back to bare his teeth. Fuches huffs and shudders in reflexive anticipation, his flagging erection already stirring at the approach.

“Goddamn it,” he pants. “Don’t.”

Barry gets close enough for Fuches to feel his breath, his mouth almost on him before he abruptly snaps his teeth together with an audible click. Fuches gives an impatient grunt, releasing his hold on one of Barry’s wrists so he can grab a handful of his hair instead, seizing the reins and giving a sharp yank downwards. Barry resists the effort with no effort at all, and instead reaches out with his own hand to take hold of Fuches’s cock and carefully angle it to one side. Then he hawks up the biggest mouthful of saliva he can muster and spits it directly onto the biggest lipstick stain he can see. In lieu of a washcloth, he sets in to scrubbing it away with his tongue. 

“Oh, Jesus,” Fuches groans, releasing Barry’s other wrist so he can drop his hand back on the bed to keep his balance. “Come on, don’t, _don’t_ —”

But Barry does, slobbering up and down the length of him while Fuches hisses and twists and tries to angle himself into the sheath of Barry’s mouth. He keeps tugging on Barry’s hair, powerless to control him at this point but still unable to resist the impulse to try. Relentless, Barry angles his cock over to the other side so he can finish licking him clean, the strokes quick and businesslike, closer to a feline grooming than anything even remotely resembling foreplay. He has to press his weight onto Fuches’s lap to keep him from bucking up too forcefully from the bed. Fuches is hard as a rock by now, frantic for relief, his voice desperately climbing in both volume and pitch. 

“All right, all right,” he wheezes. “I got it, I got it, I got it— _I got it, Barry_ — fuck— come _on_ —”

Barry laves him with his tongue until Fuches’s thighs are shaking underneath his weight. Then, without warning, he sits back on his heels, his body completely disengaged, his hands coming to rest calmly on Fuches’s knees. It’s too far for Fuches to maintain the grip in his hair, his hand falling limply into his lap, his head thrown back with an exasperated whine. 

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Fuck you, man. Fuck. You.”

Barry doesn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. He waits in silence until Fuches finally has no choice but to lower his head and look him in the eye again. Then Barry grabs hold of that eye contact with everything he’s got, pinning Fuches in his stare, refusing to let him off the hook. 

“Don’t you fucking look at me like that,” Fuches warns, but all the fight’s gone out of him, his voice hoarse and unconvincing. 

Gazes still locked, Barry lets himself start to lean in again, inch by agonizing inch. As soon as he’s close enough the hand in Fuches’s lap lunges up to claim him— not to grab his hair as Barry expected, but cradling his face instead, Fuches’s palm cupped at the corner of Barry’s jaw. Blindsided, Barry nuzzles into his grip, his throat unexpectedly tight, his eyes stinging with heat. There’s that look again— _too brittle for sadness; the razor’s edge of anger with none of the fire; something that’s almost, but not quite, pain_ — Fuches is afraid. Barry couldn’t even begin to articulate why. He’s not sure Fuches could explain it himself.

“Shut up,” Fuches rasps, his grip tightening on Barry’s jaw. “Just shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Fuck you,” Barry says, miserable, just because Fuches told him not to say anything. 

Then he leans in to shove as much of Fuches down his throat as he can take, bound and determined to make this the best goddamn blowjob that Fuches has ever had in his life.

Fuches gives an inarticulate cry, his body crumpling like an empty beer can, both hands hooked into Barry’s hair in a reflexive spasm. Barry usually lets him set the tempo, but not this time— this time no matter how much Fuches pushes and pulls, Barry refuses all direction, heedless of both bridle and spurs. He keeps Fuches pinned to the bed, his hands locked down on the shallow thrusting of his hips, determined to withhold every possible fraction of control. It doesn’t make him feel like he has any more control himself, but, well, at least now they’re on equal footing there. 

“ _Shit!_ ” Fuches barks. “Oh, goddamn it, Barry, god— _damn it_ —”

He scrambles to brace his feet and try to push up with his legs, but Barry just throws his weight down on Fuches’s lap and shuts him down with his size alone, which for some reason seems to come as a shock. Sometimes Fuches acts like a dog owner who still hasn’t processed the fact that the puppy he once carried in the crook of his arm is now a full-grown Great Dane. Truth be told, Barry tends not to remember, either. It usually only makes things… complicated. 

But it’s useful to him now. Now he can keep Fuches right where he wants him, holding him nice and steady while he drags him through a series of long, slow swallows, deeper than he’s ever taken him before, pushed beyond his usual limits by the sheer intensity of his spite. At the peak of his Marine training he could hold his breath for well over three minutes without breaking a sweat; these days he knows he’s still got at least two in him, easy. He hums and growls while he works, his throat vibrating mercilessly while Fuches thrashes and curses, his fists yanking on Barry’s hair with all the desperate futility of someone stomping on a brake pedal that he already knows is broken. 

“Oh Jesus—” he keens. “Ohhh _god_ Barry— Barry— _please_ —”

Barry rips his mouth off of him before he can choke on the sob that suddenly explodes out of his lungs. The pain of the impact wound is finally blooming in his chest like a mushroom cloud, the grief rushing into his bloodstream in a shockwave. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs so he clenches his teeth instead, his body wracked and trembling, his heart dumped from a boiling pot of water and into a whirring blender. 

It’s the first time since they started this whole arrangement that Fuches has ever said _please_.

“Please,” Fuches whispers again, carding his shaky fingers through Barry’s damp, sweaty hair while Barry screws his eyes shut in anguish. “C’mon, Barry, I— I need—” 

And Barry wants so badly for him to say _you_ but he’s too terrified that he’s going to say _it_ so he yanks the emergency ripcord and spits out, “Shut up, just shut up.” 

Fuches makes a rough, painful sound in the back of his throat, and suddenly Barry is so angry about the whole thing that he needs to lash out, he needs to _do something_ , and in a jarring surge of motion he grabs the combination of Fuches’s pants and underwear and starts to wrestle them the rest of the way down his thighs. Before he can get them over his knees, Fuches reacts in vehement protest, one hand grabbing wildly to reverse the process, the other slapping hard at Barry’s head to dissuade him from going any farther. 

“Hey! Hey!” His voice cracks with a mixture of outrage and alarm. “Knock it off!” 

With a dark certainty that chills him to the core, Barry thinks that there’s nothing Fuches could actually do to stop him, not from doing this, not from doing anything. Barry could take him apart with his bare hands and all Fuches would be able to do is yell at him about it. Burning with shame, he bulldozes right over Fuches’s attempts to block him, tearing his pants over his knees and shoving them down to the floor, leaving Fuches naked from the waist to the ankles, his feet bound together by the tangle caught on his shoes.

“Mother _fucker_ —” Fuches grits out, and he makes a wild, inebriated lunge towards standing up that Barry easily deflects back down again. 

In the next heartbeat Barry is all over him, dragging his face and mouth over every part of Fuches he can reach, nuzzling and huffing in Fuches’s lap while Fuches wheezes in disbelief, once again obliged to catch his weight on one hand before he topples all the way back onto the mattress. 

“No,” he moans. “No, no, c’mon, Barry, _don’t_ —”

But Barry does, his hands stroking up and down Fuches’s bare legs, his mouth lapping greedily at all of the unexplored territory while Fuches swears and shakes but gives up on trying to fight. He just sits back and lets Barry thoroughly work his way from Fuches’s lap down into the space between his thighs, all lips and teeth and tongue, covering every inch of him in a selfish coating of spit. Barry wishes more than anything that he could enjoy this unprecedented level of access, but try as he might, he can’t stop feverishly hunting for lipstick stains, scouring Fuches’s skin for any evidence of how far the trespasses might have gone. 

_Don’t think about Fuches’s mouth smeared with red, don’t think about him scrubbing it off in the bathroom mirror before he left to come here_ —

This time the impulse to scream is so overwhelming that the only thing Barry can do is wrench his head up and gag himself on Fuches’s cock, his mouth suddenly stuffed too full for any sound to escape at all. 

“ _Fuck!_ ” Fuches’s hips jump towards the pull of Barry’s throat, his voice high and quavering. “Oh, Jesus— Jesus Christ— Barry that’s— ah, god—”

Barry takes him over and over, his throat working like he’s trying to swallow the key to a treasure chest, hellbent on keeping anyone else from ever opening it again. His hands refuse to settle, his grip fumbling over Fuches’s belly and thighs while Fuches bucks and gasps and tears at Barry’s hair, goading him to go harder, harder. When that’s not enough, he tears at Barry’s shoulders and arms— and then all at once he’s tearing at Barry’s t-shirt, drawing the hem of it inexorably up along the span of his back, which arches and shudders as it’s unexpectedly exposed to the open air. 

And it’s funny, because Barry actually thought for a second there that there was nothing Fuches could do to make him stop. Now he flinches back in startled confusion, his eyes wide and bewildered, one hand jumping automatically to press his shirt down over his chest. Fuches won’t tolerate the hesitation for one second. 

“Off,” he commands, his voice hoarse. “Now.” 

There’s no chance of second-guessing a direct order. Right away Barry reaches back to grab his collar and drag it forward over his head— Fuches grabs the shirt while he’s still blinded, wrestling it the rest of the way off of him and tossing it to the floor. Barry sucks in a breath, stripped and shell-shocked, his boxers about as effective at combating the feeling of nakedness as a band-aid on a bullet hole. He looks up for reassurance and finds none. Fuches just looks scared. 

“Fuck you,” he says, the words ugly and raw. “Fuck you, Barry.” 

“Sure,” Barry says, weak. “Okay, Fuches.” 

“Don’t,” Fuches chokes out. “Don’t, don’t—”

But Barry is already pressing back into the space between Fuches’s legs, his head bowed to draw Fuches’s cock back into his aching, devoted mouth. The stammers of protest dissolve into a long, low moan of gratification, Fuches shoving both hands into Barry’s hair at the first deep thrust. By the third or fourth they’ve already begun to wander, his touch traveling relentlessly down, down until he’s pawing at Barry’s bare shoulders and back, his fingernails just shy of ripping into the skin. Barry keens with savage pleasure, the sound messy and garbled, his lips and chin rapidly growing slick with drool. He wishes he knew how to tell Fuches that he wouldn’t mind if he drew blood. 

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” Fuches jerks his hips to the tempo of Barry’s bobbing head. “Fuck you, Barry— fuck— you— _ah_ —”

Delirious with need, Barry snakes his arms around Fuches’s back to haul himself closer, hugging his face to Fuches’s belly until he’s taken his cock all the way to the hilt, his eyes boiling with tears and his throat stretched to the seams. In the end it’s not his lungs that fail him, it’s his gag reflex— a second later and he rears back with an awful retching sound, followed by a brutal round of coughing, punctuated with a voice-shredding, gut-wrenching scream of “ _Fuck!_ ” He drops his forehead to Fuches’s lap to hide his tears and catch his breath. He’d give anything to close his eyes and wake up back in the desert right now.

“Come on, you fuck,” Fuches rasps, digging his fingers into Barry’s shoulders. “Come on.” 

_Bite him_ , Barry thinks, his mouth already poised against the tender meat of Fuches’s inner thigh. _Bite him hard bite him hard bite him really really hard_ —

“Fuck you, man,” he mumbles instead. “Get someone else to do it.” 

Fuches goes very still. When he speaks again, his voice is as cold as ice. 

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

Well, shit. Barry should have just bit the motherfucker. 

Of course, there’s an easy way out of this. All Barry has to do is a little bit of groveling, show the proper amount of remorse, and offer his submission as a token of apology. Fuches doesn’t really want to fight. He just wants Barry to show his belly, acknowledge that he was out of line to back talk— and in any other circumstances, Barry would already be rolling over.

If only he didn’t still have a smear of lipstick on the back of his wrist. 

Now Barry raises his head to fix Fuches with a baleful glare, his lip curled to show his teeth in a bitter, wounded snarl.

“I said fuck you, man,” he says, and there’s no hiding the pain in his voice. “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?”

He wants Fuches to get angry. He wants Fuches to hit him with a barrage of nasty laughter and say, “ _Oh, you think **I’m** a piece of shit? You’re the one who started this fucking mess in the first place!_” He would even be satisfied if Fuches just got up and walked the fuck out, because then at least Barry would know he hurt him bad enough to make him run. 

And instead Fuches just wretchedly hangs his head, his voice quiet, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Yeah, well,” he mutters. “Guess it’s too late to change that now, huh?”

Barry wants to get angry. He wants to hit Fuches with a barrage of nasty laughter and say, “ _It’s too late for a lot of things, asshole, now fuck off!_ ” He would even be satisfied if he could just get up and walk the fuck away, march into the bathroom and slam the door to hide until Fuches finally took the hint and left him alone to lick his wounds. 

And instead he just sighs and hangs his head, equally wretched and equally defeated. 

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I guess so.” 

In the stillness of the witching hour Barry can hear a siren screaming somewhere out in the distant streets of the city. He vaguely remembers hearing the anecdote that no one ever officially dies in the back of an ambulance; they’ll keep trying to save the patient until they get to the hospital, even if it’s obvious to everyone at a certain point that they’re only transporting a corpse. 

Fuches says, “Barry.” 

Barry says, “Don’t.” 

And by way of emphasis, he crawls in to fasten his mouth on Fuches’s cock again, effectively silencing them both. After all his ministrations the taste is safe and familiar, all evidence of trespass destroyed. It’s a clean slate, a blank page for him to cover with his signature, making his mark again and again until there’s no room left on the paper for anything else. Barry takes his time with it, one hand curled around the shaft and the other braced on Fuches’s hip, defying any attempts to maintain a steady rhythm. One-two-three quick swallows lead to a series of long, deep drags that turn into Barry’s mouth fixed on just the head, his tongue stroking insistently at the slit until Fuches is almost howling. Every time he starts to get close, Barry diverts to a new tactic, setting him back and teasing him up over and over, pushing him to the absolute limit of his already-limited endurance. He manhandles Fuches while Fuches manhandles him, raking Barry’s naked back and shoulders and somehow still finding the time to yank his hair in rough, reckless fistfuls. It’s like Fuches is trying to tear him apart while Barry is trying to devour him alive. At this point it’s just a question of who finishes first. 

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Fuches growls, the words flogging Barry like a riding crop, faster, _faster_. “Ugh, fuck, c’mon, Barry, c’mon—” 

Blinded by hunger, Barry instinctively fights back when he feels Fuches try to move, shoving himself against the motion to smother it until he realizes that Fuches is only struggling to separate his pinned feet. He can’t get the pants off over his shoes, but after some fumbling he manages to get one of the pantlegs turned inside out and it gives him enough slack to spread his feet apart with the sudden rush of a drawbridge falling open. All at once Barry can get closer, he can get so much _closer_ , and he instantly crowds into the space like a cat cramming itself into a box only half its size, determined to fill every square inch with his presence, his momentum only amplified when Fuches grabs and hauls him in. As Barry wraps his arms around Fuches’s back, he can feel the bare skin of Fuches’s inner thighs pressed over the bare skin of his ribcage, Fuches tightening his legs around him like a child tightening his fist around a shiny new quarter. 

“Barry,” he chokes out, his body doubled over so he can cradle Barry’s head against him, fingers clawing at the scalp like he’s trying to dig through to the skull and then even deeper still. “Barry, Barry, ah, _fuck_ —”

He crushes his mouth into Barry’s sweaty hair and Barry stifles his pathetic sob by convulsively tightening the circle of his arms until his nose is buried in the coarse thatch at the base of Fuches’s cock, jamming the cry right back down into his lungs again. Start the two-minute clock— this time he’s determined not to let go until it’s over. 

“Oh, shit,” Fuches pants, his legs already shaking. “Shit, _shit_ — hngh—”

Barry holds him in his throat, his shoulders drawn up with effort, his arms locked around Fuches’s back to prevent any possible attempts to dislodge him. His pulse throbs in his skull with so much force that he wonders if Fuches can feel it beating against his mouth like a fist pounding on a locked door. Fuches keeps pressing his lips into the dark, damp tangles on Barry’s head— _press, press, press_ — Barry would never be foolish enough to describe it as a kiss, but it might just be the closest they’ll ever get, and that’s got to count for something.

“Fuck,” Fuches wheezes against the crown of his head. “I can’t, I can’t—”

His words taper off into an incoherent jumble as his fists tighten in Barry’s hair and he makes his first futile attempt to pull Barry off of him. Barry is a pitbull, his arms locked like his jaws, his intentions immovable. He’s not letting go until he gets what he wants. Fuches gives his hair another yank, a hint of alarm already bleeding through into his voice. 

“Okay, man— okay, okay—”

He groans and shudders when Barry forces himself to swallow, his throat tugging insistently on Fuches’s cock. After that Fuches figures it out pretty quick, his legs clenched around Barry’s body in anticipation, his hands no longer tearing at Barry’s head but instead holding on for the ride. 

“Okay, yeah,” he grits out. “Do it. Fucking do it. Come on. _Come on_.”

Barry makes a rumbling answer in his chest, his eyes leaking tears and every muscle in his neck pulled so tight it’s about to snap. Fortunately he won’t have to wait much longer— he can already feel Fuches twitching inside of him, his cock squirming in Barry’s throat like an actor fidgeting in the wings offstage, just waiting for the entrance cue. Every breath that Fuches takes is shallower and shallower, a quavering vocal edge to every exhale, his body rocking helplessly as he nears the edge. 

“Fuck,” he hisses. “Fuck, that’s— that’s it— that’s— _hnh_ —”

He always goes quiet right before he comes. Barry squeezes his eyes shut and braces himself for the telltale bark of “ _fuck!_ ” and the rush that follows, his own control so close to shattering that he could almost weep with relief. He just wants this to be over. Tomorrow they can pretend this never happened, and then everything can go back to normal. 

But it doesn’t happen with a curse. This time when Fuches comes, the shout that rips from his lungs takes the form of a name. 

“ _Barry!_ ” he cries out, his voice broken and raw. “Oh, god, fuck, Barry— _Barry_ —”

He comes and comes in Barry’s throat, his cock jumping like a rifle on every discharge, emptying the magazine into Barry’s guts while Barry gulps and moans and takes it because it’s exactly what he deserves. Fuches was right— it’s too late for anything else now. All Barry can do at this point is make sure that Fuches knows it, too. His chest heaves against the edge of the mattress, his arms twined around Fuches in the death grip of a boa constrictor. Fuck the two-minute mark; he’ll hold his breath until he breaks the Guinness World Record if that’s what it takes.

“Ah, shit,” Fuches exhales as the aftershocks set in. “Jesus _Christ_. Fuck.” 

That’s enough for him— but Barry’s not finished with him yet. When Fuches makes the second futile attempt to push him away, Barry remains just as fixed and unyielding as before, his arms like steel girders on Fuches’s back. 

“Hey,” Fuches protests, weak and woozy. “Hey, c’mon, that’s enough.” 

But Barry won’t let him go, not when Fuches pulls emphatically on his hair, not when the shallow thrusting of his hips turns into an urgent, erratic bucking, his feet stumbling for purchase on the floor as he starts fighting to escape in earnest. Barry just swallows again, his gullet yanking mercilessly on Fuches’s overstimulated cock, his face streaked with tears and turning red from the strain. 

“Hey, hey, Jesus, fuck!” Fuches’s voice splinters into panic. “Get off me, man! Get the fuck off! Shit!” 

There’s an awful roar in Barry’s ears— _bite him bite him bite him_ — Fuches gives one terrific thrash and Barry hurls his weight against him with enough force that Fuches is knocked onto his back, his spine instantly yanked into a convulsive arch by the agonizing tension in his body, his chest heaving as he wheezes and labors for air. Now Barry’s arms are pinned under Fuches while Fuches is pinned under Barry, the knot so tight and tangled that Barry wouldn’t even begin to know how to get it undone again. Oh, god, he feels like he’s about to black out. 

“Barry!” Fuches sobs, his fingers scrabbling blindly at Barry’s hair, his ears, his face. “God, Barry, please— _please_ —”

Barry didn’t even know that was what he was waiting for, but as soon as he hears it he’s had enough, his mouth abruptly wrenched off of Fuches’s cock with a wet pop of suction. Fuches gives an exhausted whimper and collapses onto his back, drained and trembling, one arm flung over his face to cover his eyes. Barry could pull his own arms free if wanted, but he’d rather stay and rest his head on Fuches’s hip. Fuches makes one half-hearted attempt to shove him off before his hand settles on Barry’s head, not to hold him close but not to push him away, either. Barry stares blankly ahead, his unfocused eyes looking right past Fuches’s spent cock, his attention tuned instead to the stuttering pulse of the femoral artery under his ear. _Thump-thump. Thump-thump._ If he focuses on that, he doesn’t have to think about anything else. 

This time there’s not even an ambulance crying in the distance to offer a distraction. The night outside is so silent and dark that they might as well be the last two people left on the planet. Barry can’t decide whether that idea scares the shit out of him or if it actually doesn’t sound that bad. He wonders what Fuches would say about it— but on second thought, maybe he doesn’t want to know. His mind is already wandering into dangerous territory so he redirects his focus to Fuches’s breathing, which is rough and irregular and sometimes fractures into something that makes his whole body shake as if with laughter. Barry knows he’s not actually laughing. He knows because he’s shaking the same way, and he’s about as far from laughter as he’s ever been in his life, except for maybe the kind that gets you locked up in a special hospital in Germany because you’re a danger to yourself and others. Somewhere during all the shaking, Fuches gradually tightens his hand into a fist in Barry’s hair. 

It starts as a feeble tug. At first Barry doesn’t even realize it’s deliberate, but then the next tug after that is harder, and the next one harder still, until Fuches is outright yanking on Barry’s hair in the rough, brutal rhythm of a cat o’ nine tails. Incensed, Barry just grimaces and clenches his arms around him, refusing to give him an ounce of satisfaction, whether by reaction or retreat. He tries to ignore the way the cruel tempo drags his aching cock against the edge of the mattress, an unbearable friction that mercilessly hammers at the crumbling edges of his restraint. A minute ago he’d barely even noticed that he was hard. It’s like his own arousal has only been allowed to catch up with him now that his primary mission has been accomplished— and if that isn’t one of the absolute worst thoughts he’s ever had, it’s definitely a contender for the Hall of Fame. 

When Barry fails to respond to the lash, Fuches resorts to the rack instead, the sharp yanks turning into a slow, inexorable pull, the fist in Barry’s hair twisting in a ruthless corkscrew. Barry bares his teeth, his breath coming hard and fast as the tension ratchets up, his eyes watering in protest. He knows that there’s no way for him to win this standoff. No matter how long he holds out, Fuches will just keep going. In his mind’s eye Barry can see his scalp peeling away with an ugly tearing sound— the exposed, bloody dome of his skull— Fuches coming back to split the whole thing wide open with a rap of his knuckles—

With a furious snarl, Barry lunges up and back, ripping his head out of Fuches’s grip to withdraw into a bristling crouch on the floor, one hand compulsively pressed over his throbbing scalp and pounding skull. Fuches scrambles to sit up in his wake, hunched forward to hide as much of his nakedness as possible, his fists clenched defensively in the space between his knees. Barry glares up at him with so much heat that his eyeballs feel like two eggs being hard-boiled in their sockets. For just one second, Fuches looks absolutely terrified. Then his eyes turn cold and his mouth curls into a livid sneer. 

“Don’t— don’t you fucking look at me.” 

God, he sounds even more miserably drunk than before, his voice thick and slurred, every word a conscious, clumsy effort. When Barry fails to obey his command, his expression crumples with outrage and he lashes out, making a wild grab for Barry’s face, trying to catch him by the jaw. Barry easily dodges the attempt and slaps his hand away for good measure, his glare unbroken. Fuches sits back hard, his breathing heavy and ragged, a wounded animal in a corner again. Barry draws in a challenging lungful of air, his lips parted as if to speak.

“Don’t,” Fuches rasps, powerless to do anything else.

So Barry doesn’t. He wouldn’t even know what to say, anyway. Without a word, he sinks to his knees and then sits on his heels, his posture slouched until his elbows come to rest on his thighs. He never looks away from Fuches, but he’s not glaring anymore. He can’t. He’s too tired, and he knows it’s written all over his stupid, sad face, which feels like it weighs a thousand pounds and is about to slide right off the front of his skull. Fuches looks like he’s about to be sick. Barry would like to believe that’s just because he’s so fucking shit-faced. They stare at each other with the mute dread of duelists in the moments after the shots have been fired, each one waiting to see if the other falls. When neither one does, Barry isn’t sure if that means they both missed and now they have to live with what they’ve done, or they both hit their mark and this is hell. 

Guess it doesn’t make much difference at this point. 

Finally, right when Fuches’s expression is on the verge of cracking, he drops his face into his hands and his elbows to his knees, his body slumped so far forward that he looks like he’s about to crash to the floor. Barry is instantly braced to catch him, no hesitation, but Fuches just huddles in on himself and stays there, the whine of his labored breathing muffled in his palms. Barry tries to swallow and it hurts so bad that he almost yelps in audible dismay. His throat feels like someone just tried to choke the life out of him, which is closer to the truth than he would ever care to admit or examine. At least the bruises are on the inside this time. 

“Ah, fuck,” Fuches says through gritted teeth, the heels of his hands pressed into his eye sockets. “Shit. I gotta go. I really gotta go.” 

For a long moment he doesn’t stir at all. Then, with a strained groan of effort, he makes a blundering attempt to haul himself to his feet, one hand pushing him up from the mattress while the other gropes ahead of him as if reaching for some invisible purchase. He doesn’t even get halfway before he drops back to the bed like a stone, his head lolling back in drunken mortification, his eyes squeezed shut to hide his embarrassment. 

“Fuck,” he pants. “Just— gimme a second.” 

Now Barry is the one who feels like he’s about to be sick. He doesn’t want to think about how excruciating that would be for his abused throat if he does— this is already going to be painful enough. 

“C’mon, man,” he mutters, his eyes downcast, his voice a dry croak. “Just— just crash here.” 

Fuches gives him a bleary, suspicious look. Barry keeps his gaze fixed on the floor, his jaw set hard. It’s so monstrously, bitterly unfair, but he doesn’t see any other choice. He doesn’t even know how Fuches managed to get here in the first place. He certainly can’t let him go back out there in this condition. No matter how much Fuches deserves it, Barry would never forgive himself if something happened. 

“C’mon,” he says again, the words dull and flat. “It’s fine.” 

Eyes narrowed, Fuches hesitates, his body tensed as if expecting a blow. On a sudden impulse he takes one last shot at trying to stand up— but this time his sluggish lunge is actively blocked, Barry rising from his crouch to catch Fuches by the shoulders, pulling himself up to his full height while he pushes Fuches back down to the bed. Fuches gapes up at him in surprise, amazed once again by how big his puppy turned out to be now that he’s all grown up. 

“Hey,” he says, the protest faint, dazed. 

“Hey,” Barry says back. “You need to piss or anything?”

Fuches stares, wavers, then shakes his head. Barry nods in acknowledgement and more than a little relief. 

“Okay. Then, uh—” He tosses his chin down at the bed. “There you go.” 

When Fuches doesn’t budge, Barry takes him firmly by the shoulders and gives him some forceful encouragement, steering him over and around until he’s stretched out on his back. Fuches offers very little by way of resistance. In fact, Barry would say that he doesn’t resist at all. 

“Hey,” is all Fuches says, a token objection, no heat behind it. “C’mon, don’t.” 

Barry sits down on the edge of the bed and starts to pick apart the tangle of clothes caught around Fuches’s ankles. He extricates the underwear first, sliding them back up along Fuches’s legs and then fumbling them over and under until Fuches is all tucked away. Fuches relaxes noticeably when it’s done, one arm flung over his face again, almost like he can’t bear to watch as Barry goes on to diligently remove his shoes and pants, then tugs the covers out from under him so he can draw them up over his bare legs. After that there’s just one last tricky bit left.

“C’mere,” Barry says. “Jacket, too.” 

Fuches gives a tired nod and lets Barry haul him into a sitting position, the pair of them muddling together to wrestle his arms out of the sleeves one at a time, obliged to alternate as Fuches uses the opposite arm to hold on to Barry to keep himself upright. As the jacket strips off and falls to the floor, Fuches abruptly hooks his arms around Barry’s neck and drags him into a clumsy embrace, sudden and terrible and overwhelming. Barry doesn’t stand a chance as Fuches presses against his bare chest, his face buried in the crook of Barry’s shoulder, his breath hot against Barry’s skin— hot enough to sear, hot enough to scar. All Barry can do is crush his arms around him in response, his eyes staring off into the middle distance, his mind going momentarily, completely blank. 

Then Fuches jerks away from him, letting gravity pull him out of Barry’s arms and back down to the safety of the mattress again, where he lands on his back with a weary groan, one arm hooked over his eyes to shield them from scrutiny. Under the crook of his elbow Barry can still see his mouth, which is twisted into a wretched, miserable grimace, his jaw clenched against any involuntary sounds. Mute and reflexive, Barry turns and busies himself with drawing the blankets the rest of the way up, carefully lifting Fuches’s other arm so he can set it down on top of the comforter as he does so. 

“Ugh, Jesus,” Fuches mumbles, his arm stirring in Barry’s grip. “Fuck.” 

With his eyes still covered, he gropes blindly until he catches Barry’s wrist, abruptly pinning Barry’s hand to his chest. Barry barely manages to hold on to the scream that explodes into the smoldering ruins of his throat. 

“You’re a good kid, Barry,” Fuches slurs, the words directed to the ceiling. “A real good kid.” 

“Sure,” Barry whispers through his teeth. “Okay, Fuches.” 

And he stays there, rigid and unmoving, until Fuches’s grip goes slack and he’s snoring like a meat grinder trying to chew through bone. Then Barry disentangles himself, his wrist drawn out of Fuches’s grasp like he’s slipping off a manacle, his weight lifted off the bed in degrees so he doesn’t risk waking him. It seems like such a thing would be impossible in this inebriated stupor— but Fuches has a unique talent for catching Barry off-guard when he least expects it. Better to take what limited precautions he can to protect himself. He certainly doesn’t want Fuches to see him as he slinks pathetically into the bathroom, the door closed as quietly as he can manage, the handle turned to hold back the sound of the catch clicking into place. 

Alone in the dark, Barry shoves down his boxers, jams his knuckles in his mouth, and beats off until his cock is red and raw and burning. He comes so hard that he’s amazed he doesn’t see blood when he shoots his release into the sink. Then he rinses away the proof of his crimes while he washes the evidence from his hands, avoiding the mirror at absolutely all costs.

On his way back to the bed he pauses to grab his t-shirt off the floor, wincing as he pulls it on over the stinging stripes on his back and shoulders where Fuches broke the skin. Fuches is passed out on Barry’s usual side of the mattress, so Barry lopes around to the unfamiliar edge and crawls down on top of the comforter, curling up on his side to face the wall. Behind him, Fuches snores on and on, steady and constant. 

There’s a whisper of light around the edges of the window shades. It’s morning. Barry realizes, with a messy feeling, that it’s one of those rare occasions where Fuches stayed the night. That means he’ll almost certainly stay for breakfast, the pair of them going out together to the nearest diner, where Fuches will cure his hangover with a mountain of bacon and eggs while Barry sips black coffee and picks at his toast. They won’t talk about what happened tonight during the witching hour. They never will, and to be frank, Barry prefers it that way. He doesn’t exactly need to have a detailed conversation on the subject. 

He just needs Fuches to think twice the next time he goes to set out his ashtray for company. 

_end.


End file.
